Road To Financial Recovery

in_need_of_direction

Maybe chat to an advisor about topping up a pension

FootyFanDan

Happy money shuffling day to those who celebrate it 😊. Today is my Friday and I’m planning on very much an admin day and winding down. I might work from home this afternoon but we will see.

Dakota_Rose

Have to love the money shuffle day!

FootyFanDan

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81982821#Comment_81982821

Shame that is it done now until next month..haha.

FootyFanDan

Finally the end of my work week. I do feel despite having a very rough start to the week, the end of it has been a lot better and I have made some good strides in getting jobs done. Four more projects completed this week and off the radar. I am planning on having a chilled night, and then tomorrow's plan is to go to the tip a few times and then cut the garden. We also have a show to go to tomorrow night which should be lovely. We might possibly go away for the day over bank holiday weather dependant but if not I am sure we will find something to do.

All the funds have been shifted into various pots. I still do need to allocate the funds into the various savings but I am not sure what I am putting in those just yet.

FootyFanDan

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81982158#Comment_81982158

this might be the route I go. I need to check and play around with figures a bit. I am keen to make sure that some element of the wage increase goes to increasing the pension

FootyFanDan

It certainly feels nice for it to be Sunday and not having to worry about that Monday wake up call :) We've had a really good weekend, although today was pretty much a chilled day due to the wash out weather wise. Friday I managed to get to tip nice and early and also got the garden cut, so well worth booking the day of for. We then had food and the show which was amazing!! we all really enjoyed it. Yesterday we also had vouchers for a coach trip, which we won for daughter's world book day outfit :) - so we went and cashed that in and we decided that we would use it for the trip to Blackpool Airshow in August. Today we did the food shopping, and we are all pretty much on the countdown to our holiday.

In finances, I need to make some choices about how much I am going to start putting away in pots and for savings, but that can be tomorrow's task. I have never really sat and actually put in much thought over the savings aspect.

Hope everyone had a good weekend.

Smudgeismydog

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81983087#Comment_81983087

Unless you have someone in work that you could speak to about your pension, this wouldn’t normally be something an advisor would take on, unless you wanted them to do something like cash flow planning for you.

Apologies if it’s been covered before, but does your work pension operate salary sacrifice? Would your employer increase their contributions if you do? These are the things to check, but generally paying more into the pension is very tax efficient, and obviously builds up your retirement pot. There are some useful online calculators which will show the effect of increasing contributions on take-home pay.

The thing to remember is your pension money is not accessible until you reach a certain age, so before committing to increasing contributions, review your household priorities, e.g are you saving for a house deposit? This will help you decide how much of the wage increase to commit to each.

FootyFanDan

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81986132#Comment_81986132

I think it is that balance of thinking of the future but also living for the now. Honestly pensions, investing and stuff is all so alien to me (I know that isn't very MSE) I am trying to learn though. At the moment there is debate about what we do house wise, we are currently very lucky in that our outgoings are fairly average as we are in council housing. I am quite content here, although I think long term my partner would like our own home. My workplace do use the salary sacrifice, which is currently made up of 4.5% me and 3.5% employer. I actually don't know (embarrassing) whether my employer increases % if I put mine up.

I think at the moment, my focus is to aggressively fund that first 1st £1,000 emergency fund. Along with increasing the sinking funds. I like the idea of making the place we have our own, despite some limitations with size I do like it but it has to work for us all, so maybe even starting to fund a deposit isn't a bad idea whilst we are lucky enough to have the capacity to do so.

MillQueen

Well I guess it would be a good prospect to keep saving whether it ends up being a deposit or not. It may be a good opportunity to build up some funds in case you do want to buy later. If your employer will contribute more to the pension I agree it would definitely be great to max that out, as it's like free money. I too am learning about investing and pensions. The one good thing I did was always pay the maximum I could into my pension, but without understanding much about it. Investing in a stocks and shares ISA has turned out to be easier than I thought it would be, but I put it off for ages due to fear about it being really complex.